Exploring a mysterious writer

November 1, 2007

HEDGESVILLE — Most people have read the more popular works of 19th-century American writer Edgar Allan Poe in school, and are now left with an image of a dark and mysterious man.

“Edgar, ” a new chamber musical showing at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the historic Snodgrass Tavern, provides an intimate look into the lesser-known aspects of Poe’s life and character.

A collaborative work by actor Ethan Angelica and composer Phill Greenland, both of Brooklyn, N.Y., “Edgar” is the product of seven months spent poring over Poe’s written remains. Angelica and Greenland culled together excerpts from Poe’s letters, stories and poems to create a conversational piece in the writer’s own words.

“Nothing in the show is fictional,” Greenland says during a telephone interview conducted a few hours before performing in Elizabethtown, N.Y. “Every word in the play was spoken by Poe in real life.”

Angelica plays the part of Poe, who speaks to the audience about his views on life and his own experiences of love and loss.

“There is a side of Poe I wouldn’t have known about just by reading some of his stories or poems in sixth grade,” Angelica says in another telephone interview the morning before the second performance in Elizabethtown. Through studying the large body of Poe’s written correspondences, Angelica and Greenland say they learned about the more personal, human side of the writer.

“Many people don’t consider his life story,” Greenland says. “Poe had a tough life. His folks died when he was very young, he didn’t get along with his adoptive father and later in life his wife died.”

A working writer, Poe depended upon his writing for financial stability. “He wrote to put food on the table,” Greenland says.

The letters Poe wrote provided a background against which Angelica and Greenland studied his professional writings.

“The letters tell us what Poe was doing when he worked on certain writings,” Angelica says.

One of the aspects of Poe’s life that Angelica says he found most touching was his relationship with Virginia Clemm, his wife. At age 26, Poe secretly married Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin, who died of tuberculosis at only 24.

“When I looked at his writings, it was apparent that Poe loved his wife deeply,” Angelica says. “He was destroyed by Clemm’s death.”

Angelica says this side of Poe is one he was drawn to as a writer himself, as well as a performer. “Poe certainly was a dark man, but it was wonderful to discover this human side of him — one that was madly in love with a woman he eventually lost, and who felt such pain when she died,” he says.

For a Valentine’s present two years before her death, Clemm wrote a poem for Poe called “Ever With Thee.” As Poe, Angelica sings this poem during the show to Greenland’s piano accompaniment.

Other poems written by Poe that are set to music for the performance are “Alone,” “In the Greenest of Our Valleys” (from “The Fall of the House of Usher”) and “Annabelle Lee,” an audience favorite according to Angelica. All of the accompanying piano pieces were composed by Greenland.

Greenland and Angelica look forward to performing in the Snodgrass Tavern. They have performed at other historical homes, but this is the only one with any connection to Poe. Because the Snodgrass Tavern was up and running while Poe was alive, and its owner Dr. Joseph E. Snodgrass was a close friend to Poe, Angelica and Greenland say it is very likely Poe visited the tavern.

The current owner of Snodgrass Tavern, Dawn Gonano, says it is rumored that Poe did indeed stay there, and that he wrote the poem “The Raven” during his visit. After Gonano’s great-great-grandfather bought the tavern from Snodgrass and turned it into a private home and farm for his family, she says, Snodgrass would often come back to visit and tell stories about his experiences with Poe.

“My great-grandfather, a child then, wrote down all that Snodgrass said on a wooden board,” Gonano says, “including that Poe wrote ‘The Raven’ while he stayed at the tavern.”

Gonano says Snodgrass was the person Poe requested while he was ill and dying, and that he was one of the few people to attend Poe’s funeral.

“Edgar” will be performed in the candlelit parlor of the Snodgrass Tavern. Like the other places Angelica and Greenland have performed, they chose the tavern for its history and its intimate setting.

“The play was purposely written not to be performed in a theater,” Greenland says. “We wanted to perform somewhere Poe would have felt at home.”

Gonano says attendees will feel as though “Poe came back to life to talk with his friends, sharing his views on life and death and what things were like for him, and occasionally singing his poems.”

There will also be a silent auction at the production, she says, offering items such as vacation home rentals and products from the Snodgrass Tavern farm.

“I’m excited about performing at the Snodgrass Tavern,” Angelica says. He says the tavern is a perfect setting for “Edgar,” a work combining art and history.

Article Photos

Submitted photoEthan Angelica is Edgar Allan Poe in the drama “Edgar” at the Snodgrass Tavern in Hedgesville. (Submitted photo)

Fact Box

Want to go? What: “Edgar,” a play on the life and life’s work of Edgar Allan Poe. Event also includes a silent auction. When: 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday Where: Snodgrass Tavern, Hedgesville Cost: $30 per person For more information or for tickets: call (304) 582-7211 or visit the Martinsburg-Berkeley County Convention and Visitors Bureau, 115 N. Queen St.